GTA Online’s first title update (well, not counting the 1.01 update that enabled it) purportedly fixes the following issues with Grand Theft Auto V’s multiplayer mode:
"Fix to address the issue where players were stuck launching a session before the Mall or Nothing race in the online tutorial.
Fix to address an issue where bank & cash were deleted incorrectly in some cases.
Fix to address incorrect amounts of cash being dropped when the player dies in Missions and Last Team Standing.
Fixes an issue where the Character Switch Wheel would disappear after a failed load.
Fixes an issue where attempting to enter GTA Online via the Character Switch Wheel caused a black screen.
Fixes an issue where temporary characters were overwriting main characters.
Fixes an issue where players were losing apartments and the money they spent on them.
Fixes an issue that caused Story Mode missions to be missed in some instances.
Removes the autosave that occurred when transitioning into GTA Online from within GTAV Story Mode to prevent the chance of Story Mode saves becoming corrupted.
Several tweaks to GTA Online including improving overall stability."
And for all I know, title update 1.02 DOES fix these problems. But GTA Online’s issues run so much deeper. As PSU Forums crew leader and the man responsible for reviewing both Grand Theft Auto V and its online component, I’ve been trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to hit the streets of Los Santos with my created online character all week.
On Day 1, I dealt with the total inability to connect–and suffered seven or eight character deletes, besides. Things were a little better on Day 2 and 3; I could enter Los Santos and get past the tutorial race with Lamar, but player counts were low and matchmaking for Jobs was often brutally slow or failed to work altogether. Today, on Day 4, it seems to have gotten even worse. In eight attempts to enter the online world, only one succeeded and got past some variation of a "Timed out" message. On that attempt, my character’s arms wouldn’t load. I tried to enter a Job–after 10 minutes of loading, I was booted with another "Timed out" message.
With each passing hour, we inch closer to GTA Online’s first full week of release, and these problems show no signs of letting up. But what makes this situation different from other troubled online releases–think SimCity or Diablo III on PC–is that the rest of the game works fine.
There are hundreds of hours of incredible fun to be had with GTA V’s singleplayer mode, so how do we gauge Rockstar’s failure to get its head around GTA Online after days of SNAFU? Should launch window connection problems be a top priority to fix in the next generation?
We’ll be tackling this very issue on this weekend’s episode of PlayStation Unchained, our official PSU podcast, but sound off in the comments below with your thoughts on the matter. We might toss a few onto the issue and discuss your opinion.